The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has kicked off a new initiative for rural and remote areas in the country, even before the new government is formed.
In a letter to telecom service providers and associations across the sector, DoT has sought a meeting with industry representatives for strengthening the optic fibre cable (OFC) networks in the rural and remote parts of India.

The Universal Service Obligation (USO) Fund is all set to float a tender for taking up OFC projects across the country. The idea is to provide “backhaul capacity to integrate the voice and data traffic from the access network in rural areas.” The new scheme is about OFC network augmentation, both for fibre capacity and terminal equipment capacity.

Assam has been identified as the first state for the project. The objective of the USO Fund, to which all telcos contribute, is to support telecom projects in rural India. While teledensity of India is at 37%, that of rural India is just 13%. In urban parts of the country, teledensity is much higher at 72%.      

Meanwhile, the telecom industry is demanding a reduction in the USO levy by 2% in the case of operators who achieve coverage of 95% of the development blocks. The industry demand is in the context of the 100-day roadmap that the new government is drawing up across sectors.

The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), representing the GSM (global systems for mobile communications) players, has cited an Icrier report to say that “there are significant benefits to be reaped from increase in teledensity and the only realistic way to achieve rapid growth in teledensity is through the wireless platform.” It added that “the real benefits of telecommunications only start when a region passes a threshold penetration rate of about 25%. Thus, there is a pressing need to increase teledensity in the rural areas.”

According to estimates, 70 to 80% growth will come from the rural areas in the coming months.